


where time stands still or moves at your will

by eitherwayheturns



Series: WIP: seven seasons [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Cigarettes, Ficlet, Gen, Interlude, Jim is an impossible bastard at all times, Jim's pride, M/M, Sebastian's coat, Smoking, Unspoken, Winter, mormor, secret little gifts, unfluffy fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 04:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5653186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eitherwayheturns/pseuds/eitherwayheturns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ficlet. Sebastian has two jobs: murder people Jim tells him to, and keep Jim from murdering him. There is no murder in this story. There is only a coat and a cigarette, and a very cold winter. Title is from Depeche Mode - "In Your Room":</p>
            </blockquote>





	where time stands still or moves at your will

Jim stood in the hotel courtyard, his hands clenched tightly closed at his sides. It was not yet dawn, and the silence hanging over them seemed heavier and more expansive than it would at another hour or in better weather. Cruel ferns of frost had formed on every surface: the wrought iron benches, the small stone tables, the leafless tree branches framing the sky.

More of a leaner than a stander, Sebastian was watching with his shoulder holding up one cold brick wall of the hotel’s exterior. Smoking with gloves on always felt strange, but it was impossible to shake the sense that somehow it would warm his body. Jim had explained that cigarettes cause a drop in blood pressure, and hence in temperature, but in his heart Sebastian knew as long as he kept some kind of fire going the winter couldn’t win.

As dynamic as he usually was, there were times Jim went fully still. As now, with his eyes fixed on the distance, his posture rigid but comfortable, reminding the sniper of a soldier at parade rest. As always thinking himself naturally resistant to the elements, the Boss had left his overcoat in the hotel suite, and Sebastian had made the damn fool move of suggesting he shouldn’t, earning himself a look of disdain that lodged in his ribs like an icepick, that was far worse than being shouted or indeed (poorly, randomly, wildly) shot at.

With that image, Sebastian’s perception shifted. He’d been studying Jim like a man looking at a statue or, given Sebastian’s complete indifference to art, a really good supercar. The odd stillness in the courtyard, the frozen hush, had charmed his brain somehow–for now he saw clearly that what he’d taken for the posture of a man lost in more layers and interconnections of thoughts than Sebastian might have in a whole day was in fact Jim refusing to shiver just because he was absolutely fucking freezing. He’d decided going out he didn’t need a coat, and goddamnit, he wouldn’t need one.

Sebastian didn’t permit himself a smile. Jim would think it condescending. Keeping his expression even, present but stoic, he shrugged out of the large, dull camou green winter coat he wore himself, with its fur-lined hood and oversized pockets, all of it soft and warm with puffs of down inside the fabric.

Striding to Jim with no trace of sentiment, Sebastian held it up, and just as a look of fury began to appear in the Boss' dark amber eyes, he said:

“You were right, sir. We should have brought your coat.”

It almost didn’t work. But then Jim rolled his eyes and held out an arm, allowing Sebastian to help him into the thing, both of them ignoring completely how the sleeves fell past Jim’s hands and the collar drooped around his sternum.

“You moron,” Jim said with meaning, pulling a packet of Sebastian’s smokes out of the pocket and shaking one out. “I don’t know why I tolerate you.” Still lecturing, he casually held the cigarette out, and when it was between Sebastian’s lips, his hand reappeared with the blue-steel Zippo he’d given the sniper last year. “You’ll catch your death of the cold out here, but whose fault is that?” He snapped the lighter into flame and held it out as Sebastian leaned in… igniting, inhaling.

Each of them looked at something aside from the other, and sharp grey smoke drifted towards the tops of the trees, entwining with the branches, but vanishing before they went back inside.


End file.
